If you are one of those people that organise all your discs by genre, this one is going to really screw you up. It might at first seem an easy task as the act helmed by ex Machetezo and current Banished From Inferno musician and vocalist Rober Bustabad grinds like a veritable bastard. Then things go down a completely different path…
The first four tracks here are everything one could wish for, Rober, ably assisted by drummer Angel fires us into a seething pit of catchy and incendiary grind. Opener ‘Eterno Retorno’ has a massive and dirty hook-line furrowing through it, punctuated by some jagged barbs and a ferocious bellow. It gets right in your head and is a fist-slamming assault that is impossible to get out your bonce. There are some absolutely sick elongated roars and everything about this one is an overpowering adrenaline rush. ‘Tormenta de miseria y muerte’ if anything manages to up the antagonism and hits Napalm Death or RDP like levels of intensity. Angel absolutely powers away and this rages, flattening everything in its path. This segment sounds like a whole band is hammering away and utterly obliterating things and the production here is top notch, every part ramming home and crushing. In just over 10 minutes it’s all done with the title track leaving you breathless although a sinister and bleak keyboard orientated section has plenty of atmosphere about it and is a precursor to the next section.
About turn we go next, synthwave with 2 tracks over a substantially longer 20-minutes here. ‘Ex putrefaktio’ could be looked at as an intro and has a dystopian and post-apocalyptic feel as keyboard sound pulses and gloom and abandonment of a ravaged world is the overriding image portrayed to me. Of huge depth though is the ambitious 17-minute plus epic ‘Lázaro.’ Here the volume and levels are pushed up, perhaps slightly too much and we quake into swathes of keyboards moving towards an incestuous melody line that triggers off the synapses with a slight air of familiarity. Guitar and bass also become present enforcing this and that has more a Goblin flavour to it than anything by the obvious John Carpenter references that others will no doubt lazily refer to here. This has an incredibly evocative Italian film flavour to it and to me owes more to the likes of Al Festa on films like Bruno Mattei’s action cheese-fest Robowar along with some aforementioned apocalyptic gloom and even a bit of supernatural overtones. Yeah, I could go through my film collection and spend ages picking bits out of here and there. One thing that certainly isn’t expected though is some sudden harsh noise and glitchy effects (far better than those used on Robowar) that invade like an out-of-control mechanoid and on 1st play had me practically jumping out my skin. After some ambience the “main theme’ hammers back in again and is absolutely glorious. Carrying off a long number like this and keeping the interest up is no easy task but this is handled excellently with style and panache.
Fans of extreme music and great films are going to be united here. There is common ground especially when both sides are dealt with so well and as far as I am concerned Ruinas are a highly interesting and intriguing outfit. Now I want more….
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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